3 comments

Incredible! I remember looking for a studio apartment around 1999, and it was easy to find one for about $500-600 a month. Now, even a downtown hotel room in a residential hotel will cost you $800. (And no, I wasn’t shopping for one…. just decided to check out what Craigslist showed for under $500 in San Francisco.)

Rent is up at least 10% in areas like Pac Heights and other north end neighborhoods. I’ve got great tenants, and I just feel bad raising their rent that much, since they’ve been there that long.

With prices up, rents up, and a 30-yr fixed mortgage, I am a very happy person. It’s all about duration of the ownership. Anybody buying to sell within 5 years should NOT be buying. It takes about 2.5-3 years when you start saying to yourself, ‘wow, that was cheap.’ Inflation is a beautiful thing when you have fixed debt, and an inflating asset.